for Amy - on Planet Raw

[Guest guest]

Amy,Just so you know, two days prior to writing

that original Planet Raw post, the woman I’d been dating told me she wanted to

just be friends. And two days before that, I’d witnessed people cheering

and laughing as a man jumped to his death in downtown San Francisco. Furthermore, I’ve been

unemployed ever since being laid off in October from the job I moved cross-country for, and went into debt moving back to California last month. So, with all due respect, if you’re asking

me to show compassion for a chef who (for whatever reason) insulted my good

friends, I might request a little consideration of what I happened to be going

through when writing that I would boycott Planet Raw.

Understand that I wrote my original post out of heartfelt

compassion for my friends Tammy & Chris. It upset me greatly that

someone showed them such disrespect, so I was calling on Planet Raw to do the

decent thing by taking some form of responsibility for their chef’s

actions. But you seem to be saying that showing compassion for the offender

amounts to absolving her from having to account for herself because she may

have been having a bad day, a bad week, a bad whatever.

I disagree, and use myself as an example to

illustrate why. That is, I openly admit here that my own response to Rob’s

comment about “giving vegans a bad name” was uncalled for. It was an

overreaction to a perceived accusation of bigotry that the stressors in my life

may help explain, but not excuse — and that’s why I’m taking ownership for it. Rob and I

buried our hatchet days ago by agreeing that we merely misunderstood one

another, and I’m pledging to be more careful in online forums (where words can

easily take on unintended meanings). In contrast, as far as I know, Planet Raw

still has not even acknowledged that anything happened…but apparently,

now they won’t have to.

Merely pardoning the chef’s rudeness isn’t

compassion; it’s being an enabler to her destructiveness. As the Dalai Lama has

said, “One of the reasons there is a need to adopt a strong countermeasure

against someone who (causes harm) is that if you let it pass, there is a danger

of that person becoming habituated to extremely negative actions, which in the

long run will cause that person’s own downfall and is very destructive for the

individual himself or herself. Therefore, a strong countermeasure, taken out of

compassion or a sense of concern for the other, is necessary. When you are

motivated by that realization, then there is a sense of concern as part of your

motive for taking that strong measure.”

Ultimately, though, the outcome of the Planet Raw

wars no longer interests me: I’m honestly ready to just move on from this

discussion, which from the start has only caused me grief. 

Mat Thomas

www.animalrighter.org 

On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 6:20 PM, Tammy <tammy wrote:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, Amy, that reason was not in the litany that the chef/co-owner shared as to why she was walking out mid-day. 

 

I do agree, it is her lesson to learn with her business. 

 

Tammy

 

 

 

 

On Behalf Of giegrrrlWednesday, February 24, 2010 4:00 PM Subject: for Mat

 

for Mat.I think whatever compassion you offer up for animals, for suicides, etc... you could extend that compassion to the woman from the restaurant giving vegans a bad name. For all you know, a loved one of hers committed suicide the previous weekend. If she kills her business, she kills it. That's her lesson.Amy in Pacifica